The DL

Well, we thought it might happen at some point, we just didn't know it would be so soon into his dance career. A genie jump went awry at dance class the other night and Chris broke his foot. He has been handling it like a pro, even with the knowledge that he can't dance for 6-8 weeks. In a way, he's relishing having a cast on his leg and can't wait for everyone to sign it! He's definitely disappointed about some of the upcoming dance competitions and events that he will miss but he's still planning on attending some events and classes. There is still a lot he can do to stay in some kind of dance shape and he was watching a video this morning with some non-foot exercises. In the meantime, we are going to be playing a lot of cards and Monopoly... The other night, after he hurt his foot, we were still at dance class and Chris was being measured by one of the moms for his new vest. This, of course, is not his vest but we sent the picture to Daddy telling him it was...

Then there is Jonathan, who loves to curl up with Legos...

Even though we are sad for Chris that he got hurt, we are happy to have him here with Daddy this weekend. They were originally going to Dallas for a feis but now they get to stay home with us! Athena is also ecstatic...

Recently

We have been having some beautiful weather out here in Kansas for the beginning of spring! The boys have been getting outside a bunch and my favorite thing about spring is about to get going--the garden! This year, we decided to try some seed starting. Last fall, Christopher saved cucumber, pumpkin, and gourd seeds. He washed, dried and stored them himself and we decided to get a starter kit the other day to see what would happen when we plant them. We also picked up some romaine and chard seeds at the garden center. Here is our starter kit after a couple days...

It is hard to see, but the romaine sprouts were starting to come up! Then this morning, we could see chard sprouts and a couple pumpkin sprouts too!

We have been getting together with our neighbor friends to play outside too. Jonathan, Noah and little Christopher have been a little scooter riding gang...

And baby Derek is the cutest, running all over the place and making Tiffany keep up...

Jonathan has been a Lego-building machine recently too. He has incredible patience for his age with the Legos and will sit and take things apart, then put them back together. Now he can move that practice outside!

The boys had a wonderful visit with Nancy while she was here. Chris played a lot of Monopoly and card games with her. One night Grammy joined the card game too and there was an intense game of 500 Rummy...

Daddy has been doing a bit of traveling for work this week and this picture ended up on the computer so I thought I'd share it. He was in Idaho in the beginning of the week...

Chris and Brian are heading down to Dallas again this week for a return trip for the Bluebonnet Feis too!

Goings on

We have been enjoying some "almost spring" weather around here in Kansas as the boys have one extra week of spring break. The other day, Baby Christopher (not so much a baby anymore!) and Noah came over to play and the boys formed a rock band...

Yesterday, Nancy arrived for a visit and this morning, we went to Science City where they have a couple new exhibits!

The biggest new thing they have there is the Brain Exhibit. Below, Jonathan is measuring the "calmness" of his brain waves...

We also took the streetcar down to the River Market where we picked up canoli, cookies and ravioli at the Italian Market. We also found the KC Soda Shop, where they have all kinds of random sodas such as the one below...

Slainte!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Today is the culmination of a lot of hard work by Irish dancers and families everywhere and Kansas City is no different. We marched in our final parade this afternoon--the Kansas City St. Patrick's Day parade. This one was a big one with lots of spectators and the kids had a lot of fun...

Brian and Jonathan sat this one out since it is a much longer parade, but Brian recorded it and once again, Chris got on television!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqLA5-DX2ww

After the parade, it was on to Paddy O'Quigley's (on the complete opposite side of town!) for a casual pub performance. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1s4W13dGcg

By this time in the day we were all kind of done with St. Patrick's related stuff and so we surprised the boys with a trip to none other than Betty Rae's!

Irish Dance March Madness

Before we get to the March Madness stuff, we went to Great Wolf Lodge the other night for a little staycation! The boys had a great time on the water slides (well, Chris did... J just liked the pools) and it was a nice quick trip to break up week one of spring break...

This morning, Brian took Chris to the Kansas City Zoo for a morning performance...

And then later in the afternoon was the Brookside Warm Up Parade. It was a gorgeous day for it!!

One More!

Here is one more segment from the later morning show. J makes an appearance in the background of this one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pqH6aLwYHw

Fox 4 Morning

Here is the teaser and the video from this morning...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2850MrmIA_U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmeSdH5N7gU

Brady's Pub

Just so everyone knows, good parents bring their kids to a pub at 7:30 in the morning...

We met at Brady's Pub (a place we will definitely return to!) in Kansas City for Chris and Josie to dance on the Fox 4 local news show promoting all things St. Patrick's Day! It was a fun morning and I will put the recording of it on the blog after we watch it but here is a little sample of my own recording...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGfV2HCwZXc&feature=youtu.be

Then the owner of the pub, Sean, made a full Irish breakfast and we got these amazing homemade scones--yum!!!

What We've Been Up To

Spring break has started, and since we were just away in Ireland, we are here in town for the break. Good thing too because it is St. Patrick's season and there is a lot going on this week! More on that in a second. First, on Saturday, Jonathan and I joined a couple of his school friends at this great new indoor play place about ten minutes from our house called Superkidz. It was a great way to spend a rainy Saturday morning!

Sunday kicked off the parade season with the Martin City St. Patrick's Day Parade. It was much nicer than last year, as far as the weather goes! We still had to bundle up but the sun was shining. J was happy to roll in the wagon one more year...

 Here is Chris with the ladies, warming up before the parade...

 We followed the Oscar Meyer Weiner Car!

We even spotted a celebrity in the crowd...

Later, we went back and warmed up at Grammy's house...

This week, most of the kids around here are off of school so O'Riada Manning plans a bunch of performances at nursing homes throughout the KC metro area. Chris took part in one yesterday and one today...

Here are a couple of his dances...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7qqBuS-kyo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmcgpIbO8iQ

We were even at the studio this morning at 7:30 for what we thought was going to be another news report about Irish dance but the reporter was called away on a breaking news story. The boys were fine with it because they ended up with donuts (the other two dancers who were there are teenagers, so probably not thrilled about the 7:30 arrival time on spring break!). That even has been rescheduled for tomorrow morning and the location is now a local pub. So we are being great Irish parents and bringing our kids to a pub at 8AM!! 

Cowtown

Christopher and I traveled to Dallas, Texas this weekend for the Texas State Championship/Cowtown Feis held on Saturday and Sunday. We had a fun time and there were some really good dancers in Christopher's groups! On Sunday he placed sixth coming home with a cowbell--more cowbell!

We also had some time to explore Dallas a bit. As usual, with any feis, you kind of emerge from the cocoon of the windowless hotel ballroom around 2 in the afternoon and figure out that you are starving because all you have all day is coffee and maybe the occasional Crunchie Bar (if the lady from Cork is there selling her wares). You also see what the weather is like and that the sun did, in fact, rise that day and then you realize there is still day left to be enjoyed in a new city! Chris was craving Mexican food so we found a great restaurant downtown, had a delicious lunch (with a ridiculously yummy sundae dessert) and started to explore. We just had to stop in here first...

No it was not owned by Grandpa T but he would have felt right at home in this place! Country music was playing in the background and the smell of leather hit us like a brick wall. Chris checked out the vast selection of boots and Stetsons...

He soon realized that both items were severely out of his price range (cowboy boots for $1200?!?!) and settled for trying on a kid sized hat. When in Dallas...

Nothing like a kid in an Irish dance jacket wearing a cowboy hat! Anyway, I think it looks pretty good on him... Next we visited the Sixth Floor Museum which is a museum about President John F. Kennedy. Of course it dealt a lot with his assassination but it also gave us a great historical context for everything leading up to it and also JFK's legacy. It was a fantastic museum and Chris was really interested in everything it displayed. When I was just a little older than Chris, I was so interested in the Kennedys and I read everything I could get my hands on about them. It was so crazy to be in this museum which was located in the former Texas School Book Depository, the building where Lee Harvey Oswald shot the president from. After reading so much about this place and then to finally be there was surreal. After the museum, we went out to the grassy knoll to just kind of observe that spot. It was fascinating to be in a place where such a historic, albeit tragic, event took place. I think Chris kind of appreciated the significance of the whole thing too.

On Sunday, after the dancing, we packed up and visited possibly the most crowded mall I've ever been to to have lunch and kill time before our flight. I think the people in Dallas don't know what to do when the weather gets below 50 so they all just go to the mall! Chris and I had lunch (at 2PM) at the Rainforest Cafe before heading to the airport for the flight home. We were a bit delayed and so we are running on coffee and... coffee this morning but it was a good weekend. Chris was a little disappointed in his results but the kid is very resilient and it is good to see. He has had quite a stretch of success in Irish dance so far and we talked about the fact that it is unusual to win awards every time you dance. A lot of kids go to these feisannas and don't get anything and I think Chris understands that. This weekend was someone else's time to walk away with the hardware! Now it's on to St. Patrick's season with lots of performances and parades and fun. Hopefully it will warm up above the current 2 degrees before the Martin City Parade on Sunday!